R.B. Lemberg's Blog, page 18

Diversity of Voice and Theme

In the description of An Alphabet of Embers Kickstarter, I wrote:

I am committed to diversity of voice and theme in all my editorial projects, and this one will be no exception. I will be looking for beauty and resonance from all quarters and in all forms. As always, I am invested in supporting creators that belong to marginalized groups.

Due to external conversations going on in the field, I want to unpack this a bit. “Diversity of voice and theme” has been my motto from the moment I started thinking about Stone Telling magazine, long before I read my first submission. I keep muttering it as we – Shweta and I – read submissions and make decisions. It is a useful phrase for us.

Diversity of theme: writing that showcases a range of settings, and protagonists who belong to a variety of demographics.

Basic diversity of theme, i.e. a variety of settings and protagonists, is not too difficult to accomplish; writers are happy to write to your editorial specifics. But if you, as an editor, are only considering diversity of theme, you run the risk of having only not-marginalized or lesser-marginalized authors write about marginalized protagonists. E.g. you may end up with stories set in Japan, Australia, Mali, Peru, but written entirely by white North Americans; you may run stories with queer and trans characters written entirely by straight, cis authors.

Diversity of voice is about featuring work by authors who belong to a variety of demographics. Women, men, and nonbinary authors; PoC, white people, and people who identify as neither (the distinction of PoC/white as it’s generally understood in a US American context may not be perfectly generalizable worldwide; the lines can be drawn differently elsewhere); authors who identify as LGBTQIA and those who don’t; atheists, agnostics, and people of various faiths; able-bodied and people who live with disabilities; people variously stratified by class; old and young people; neurotypical and neuroatypical authors; immigrants and those who never immigrated; people from a variety of countries writing in a variety of Englishes; and more.

This type of diversity is harder. It may not instantaneously appear in your slush; multiply marginalized people sadly tend to self-reject, and are often understandably wary of editors without a track record. I wrote previously about encouraging diversity, from an editorial perspective. You will likely have to reach out. You will likely have work to do, as an editor, to recognize and value different types of narrative, as diversity of voice often comes with diversity of storyshape, some of it will be unfamiliar to you. You’ll have to talk to other people, ask for opinions about some of the pieces you are considering. It’s sometimes a painful process. You’ll make mistakes; you will be called out on your mistakes. All this is a part of the process, a part of the struggle to diversify the field and our reading habits.

For me, the best editorial work lies in the balance between the two kinds of diversity. You will likely accept some work where there is a match between voice and theme. You will also accept some work where there is no match between voice and theme; e.g. an Indian author may not write about Indian protagonists, a straight person will write lesbian characters insightfully, a trans author will write about cis people, a person who’s never immigrated will write cluefully about immigration, etc, etc. This variety in voice and theme is key in order to avoid tokenization and to avoid limiting writers of all demographics to only their own experience. And when there is a mismatch between voice and theme, as an editor it is your job to work to distinguish between appropriative, disrespectful, underresearched, and plain clueless work, and work that engages well.

Diversity of voice and theme is hard editorial work, but it is rewarding and worthwhile.

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

An Alphabet of Embers Day 1, now with letters

In case you missed it, the Kickstarter for An Alphabet of Embers has launched last night.  We are kickstarting for an anthology of unclassifiables – lyrical, surreal, magical, experimental pieces that straddle the border between poetry and prose.

The book will have beautiful cover art by Galen Dara, and there are so many wonderful rewards – a song by Emily Jiang, a bonus chapbook of science poetry (I will post more on that separately), additional books, posters, boxes of treasure, and even an epic performance of an Eddic poem Atlakviða in the original Old Norse.

And here’s a first of our surprises: the letter you see below is an A of Embers, from an Alphabet of Embers graciously drawn and donated to the project by Bogi Takács. The alphabet includes many other letters, which will appear in our Kickstarter updates! Some of these letters look more like Latin characters, while others are unique to the alphabet, like the letter A below.

A of Embers, by Bogi Takács

Thanks to our wonderful first-day donors, we are 18% to goal. Thank you so much to all who donated and signal boosted! Can we make it to 20% today?

ETA: Hurray, 20% reached! Can we reach 25% on Day 1?

ETA2: HURRAY, and enormous thanks to our wonderful backers, we’ve reached 25%! Can we reach 30%, or $1800, today?

Signal boosting is very much appreciated!

 

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

An Alphabet of Embers Day 1, now with letters

In case you missed it, the Kickstarter for An Alphabet of Embers has launched last night.  We are kickstarting for an anthology of unclassifiables – lyrical, surreal, magical, experimental pieces that straddle the border between poetry and prose.

The book will have beautiful cover art by Galen Dara, and there are so many wonderful rewards – a song by Emily Jiang, a bonus chapbook of science poetry (I will post more on that separately), additional books, posters, boxes of treasure, and even an epic performance of an Eddic poem Atlakviða in the original Old Norse.

And here’s a first of our surprises: the letter you see below is an A of Embers, from an Alphabet of Embers graciously drawn and donated to the project by Bogi Takács. The alphabet includes many other letters, which will appear in our Kickstarter updates! Some of these letters look more like Latin characters, while others are unique to the alphabet, like the letter A below.

A of Embers, by Bogi Takács

Thanks to our wonderful first-day donors, we are 18% to goal. Thank you so much to all who donated and signal boosted! Can we make it to 20% today?

Signal boosting is very much appreciated!

 

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Baba Yaga in July Apex

Apex July 2014 cover

 

Almost forgot to post this – but my fairly humorous poem “Baba Yaga Tries to Donate Money,” about the perils of crowdfunding, is up in July issue of Apex Magazine.

A while ago I posted a draft of this poem for critique under lock on my Livejournal. Gillian commented:

“And I accidentally found the boobs Baba Yaga. *shudder*”

I was taken aback by this, as the imagery in the poem came from my imagination; but while preparing to post this entry I googled, and … indeed. My plan was to entertain you with pictures of a sexified Baba Yaga, but once I found them, I think I shall desist. *shudder*

 

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Poetry sale and a review

My poem “The rivers, the birchgroves, all the receding earth” will appear in Strange Horizons.

A new review of “A City on its Tentacles” (Lackington’s, #1) has appeared in Black Gate. The reviewer has very complimentary things to say:

And “A City of Its Tentacles by” Rose Lemberg was artful and brilliant. The voice and imagery are powerful and I knew this wasn’t a regular story halfway through the first paragraph when I read “…reminded [her] of baby rainworms decaying by the roadside in the spring.”

The amount of uncommonly evocative imagery reminded me of magical realism […]

I don’t want to say much about “Tentacles” other than to say it is well worth savoring and rereading, and that the evocative style is not a simple artistic choice, but a thematic one whose purpose is revealed later in the story.

I am incredibly happy that this story continues to get positive reviews.

In other news, preparations for An Alphabet of Embers Kickstarter proceed apace. I hope you’ll be as excited about this anthology as I am.

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Announcing: An Alphabet of Embers

So… this is real, or almost-real: I am putting together a Kickstarter campaign to fund an anthology of unclassifiables – lyrical, poetic, surreal, magical, experimental pieces. This is going to be my first foray into fiction editing, but I hope to publish a lot of work that straddles the border between prose and poetry. I will be looking for pieces 500-1400 words long, and hope for the book to be vibrant, beautiful, diverse, and moving: a trail of embers to light the way.

 

The book will be published through my micropress, Stone Bird Press.  The Hugo award-winning and all-over amazing Galen Dara has produced cover art that perfectly conveys the feeling of the anthology.

 

 

More details to be announced soon!

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Landwork

My poem Landwork, which is related to the Journeymaker Cycle, is up at Goblin Fruit.The issue’s artwork by Paula Friedlander references the poem! Hurray! This is the second issue of Goblin Fruit with art that references my poem (first was the issue of Summer 2013). I am very, very happy. This piece also has a recording, which is not in my usual style, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

 

Spring 2014 cover of Goblin Fruit, art by Paula Friedlander

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Onions and Salamanders

Goldfish Grimm 19: New Lives and Old

 

My whimsical magic realist/surrealist flash piece, “No Longer Lacking an Onion,” about (un)loss, (un)immigration, and onions, is up at Goldfish Grimm. There is also a short author interview. “No Longer Lacking an Onion” is a part of The Jewish magic realist project.

My poem “Salamander Song,” featuring genderqueer parents and salamanders, will appear in Strange Horizons. It is a part of a collaborative piece, with beautiful music composed by Emily Jiang.

 

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.

Don't you think I know which door and what it's for?

Thank you, Sonya, for boosting the signal. We're very close to sending out our first-ever newsletter, and Shweta is test-baking cookies even as we speak. Please consider pledging or signal-boosting if you can - we're very much hoping to raise pay rates to $10 a poem, and we're getting closer to that goal now.

Originally posted by sovay at Don't you think I know which door and what it's for? Stone Telling has a Patreon! They are hoping to raise pay rates from $5 to $10 a poem (or even $15) and eventually publish chapbooks and/or collections through Stone Bird Press. Pledge different amounts and the editors will send you anything from thanks and pictures of Mippo to gluten-free cookies and sketches-by-prompt. Plus the knowledge that you are helping to fund one of the most wide-ranging, diverse, and deeply felt magazines of original poetry on the internet.

Here's the personal angle: I am invested in their continuance. Since their founding in 2010, Stone Telling has published seven poems of mine, including the one I wrote for Christopher Morcom and Alan Turing:

"Domovoi, I Came Back!" (#1)
"Persephone in Hel" (#3)
"Shnirele, Perele" (#4)
"Graffiti" (#5)
"The Clock House" (#7)
"In the Firebird Museum" (#8)
"A Bulgakov Headache" (#10)

and each time I have never been less than honored by the settings in which my work found itself. I include the issue links because I am hardly the best thing in any of those tables of contents. Alex Dally MacFarlane's "Sung Around Alsar-Scented Fires," for example. Or Dominik Parisien's "In His Eighty-Second Year." Or Shweta Narayan's "Nagapadam," Selkie D'Isa's "Bacab Skerry," or Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Elders at the Falls." Go, read. Check out the rest of the archive. And if you want more like it, drop a dollar or five or twenty in the change jar of the internet and spread the word. A magazine can't run out of its editors' pockets forever. And I would rather like to see this one stick around.

Keep yourself safe

I was going to write an essay on landscape impermanence to expand on this storify of my tweets about landscape, competence, immigration, privilege. For a reason I cannot share, the essay is not happening right now. It might happen later.

Instead, I offer this video by Melnica and a translation, for those who need it, today and on any other day. I’ve been planning to do so for a while now, and the time is appropriate.

 

Keep yourself safe

 

Never wander off the direct path,

never take the ring off your hand,

don’t step beyond the threshold over cold water,

keep yourself, keep yourself safe.

 

The heart, like a mountain hawk, throws itself into the height -

don’t reprimand yourself, run after it -

hurry and choose between the  wolf and the hound,

keep yourself, keep yourself safe.

 

And if you ask for warmth from the oak and the rowan,

your steps will not bend the grass,

so protect yourself safe from any evil,

keep yourself, keep yourself safe.

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.